PreEmptive Solutions' Dotfuscator integrated with Microsoft's Visual Studio 'Everett'

Dotfuscator Helps Developers Protect Against Reverse Engineering and Reduce Application Size.

Cleveland, Ohio and Redmond, Wash. - November 11, 2002

PreEmptive Solutions, the leader in obfuscation, size reduction and optimization development tools, together with Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT), today announced the integration of PreEmptive's Dotfuscator Community Edition into the next version of Microsoft's Visual Studio .NET^TM , code-named "Everett." By providing obfuscation tools in the box, PreEmptive and Microsoft will provide developers writing code to run on the .NET Framework with an extra layer of protection against reverse engineering, or decompilation.

The Dotfuscator Community Edition provides features, such as PreEmptive's patented Overload-Induction^TM renaming technology that make it virtually impossible to reconstruct the source code from a compiled application because the original overloading relationships are destroyed.

"Protecting access to source code and creating compact and efficient applications are two of the most important issues in developing applications," says Gabriel Torok, president of PreEmptive Solutions. "Integrating our solution into Visual Studio "Everett" provides the security developers and corporations demand."

"As soon as a software program gets released, hackers and competitors are swarming over it with the latest code analysis tools," said Pete Lindstrom, research director for Spire Security, LLC. "Obfuscation can put a quick end to their ability to succeed, thus strengthening security and protecting the intellectual property."

Developers can easily upgrade to Dotfuscator Professional Edition for an added level of protection and size reduction with advanced features such as Control Flow Obfuscation, Pruning, String Encryption, Enhanced Overload Induction and Incremental Obfuscation. Designed to stop even the best of decompilers and to create the most compact and efficient .NET Framework-based applications, Dotfuscator Professional offers the following features: 

• Control Flow Obfuscation provides a strong form of protection that creates very confusing code (to the human or decompiler) while still maintaining complete execution consistency and code verification. 

• Pruning works by extracting unused portions of program code (from the developer's own code, or third-party libraries one uses) to deliver the trimmest executable possible. In addition to improving performance, size reduction of code is crucial in distributed and .NET Compact Framework applications. 

• String Encryption helps to hide facts about a program that are discoverable by searching for internal strings. If a hacker wants to get into your code, one does not blindly start searching renamed types. One probably does a search on "Invalid License Key" which points him right to the type where license handling is performed. String Encryption raises the bar for uncovering developer secrets. 

• Enhanced Overload Induction allows the return type of a method to be used as criteria in determining its inimitability and therefore it can allow up to 15 percent more redundancy in method renames. In addition, since overloading on return type is typically not allowed in source languages such as C# and VB, this feature further hinders decompilers. 

• Incremental Obfuscation works by using input from a previous run to mimic its previous renaming scheme. That way, you can issue just the patched modules to your customers.

"We are excited to include PreEmptive Solutions' Dotfuscator Community Edition in Visual Studio "Everett". This tool contains technology that helps developers protect their intellectual property from decompilation or reverse engineering attempts on .NET Framework applications," said Tom Button, vice president of the Developer Platform and Evangelism Division at Microsoft. "For commercial and enterprise applications, the superior protection and size reduction provided by an upgrade to PreEmptive's Dotfuscator professional version is well worth a look."

In terms of size reduction, the Professional Edition's pruning feature reduces the size of executables by removing unused code. As demand grows for applications that have a networked/distributed component or that are written for embedded systems, size reduction increases in importance. Additionally, since size reduction in the executable directly affects the size reduction of individual types and subsequently, individual objects, pruned programs use less memory.

Dotfuscator Community Edition is included free and automatically installed as part of Microsoft VisualStudio.NET "Everett." Dotfuscator Professional Edition includes advanced features that provide strong code protection and makes your .NET applications as small and efficient as they can be. More information can be found at www.preemptive.com

About Microsoft
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq "MSFT") is the worldwide leader in software, services and Internet technologies for personal and business computing. The company offers a wide range of products and services designed to empower people through great software -- any time, any place and on any device.

About PreEmptive Solutions
Founded in 1995, PreEmptive Solutions is the leading provider of advanced Java and .Net obfuscation tools giving unprecedented protection, optimization and size reduction. PreEmptive's DotfuscatorTM and DashOTM Family of Products help secure and improve the efficiency of .NET and Java code. For further information, visit www.preemptive.com or call 216-732-5895. 

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PreEmptive Solutions
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solutions@preemptive.com

Bill Schultz
Waggener Edstrom for Microsoft
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Rapid Response Team
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